Pitting susceptibility and semiconducting properties of passive films of 18Cr-18Mn-2Mo-0.9N high nitrogen austenitic stainless steel

The effects of pH value and chloride ions concentration of the solution on pitting susceptibility and semiconducting properties of passive films formed on 18Cr-18Mn-2Mo-0.9N high nitrogen austenitic stainless steel (HNSS) were investigated using potentiodynamic polarization and capacitance measurement methods, respectively. The anodic polarization curves show that HNSS exhibits excellent pitting corrosion resistance in the solution with different pH values and chloride ions concentration, and the pitting corrosion resistance of HNSS decreases a little with decreasing the pH value or increasing the chloride ions concentration of the solution. The passive films formed on HNSS in the solution with pH values ranging from 1 to 9 or chloride ions concentration from 3.5 wt% to 20 wt% NaCl behave as n-type semiconductors. With increasing the pH value or decreasing the chloride ions concentration, the shallow donor and deeper donor densities decrease and the flat bland potential decreases, and the thickness of space charge layer increases. The deeper donor increases and then the second positive slope of straight linear region disappears with decreasing the pH value or increasing the chloride ions concentration of the solution, which can be attributed to the formation of Cr6+ is depressed.